ABSTRACT
The cartographic communication paradigm has become one of the established frameworks for analysing how maps work. For convenience, it simplifies the processes at work in the interactions between those who design and make maps and those who have either solicited a map, or are presented with a map. This chapter considers what geographers contribute to evaluating maps, map-reading tasks and how theories of cartographic communication can be used to make maps more effective. In map-making, digitization was a major challenge, particularly as it provided relatively secure and usable data models that begin to supplant the source mapping for all maps. As for map use and cartographic research, some emphasis is given to contrasting psychological approaches: behaviourist or psycho-physical; and cognitive. Picking out J. R. Eastman's advocacy of the latter is the more effective way of understanding how the map user makes sense of a complex map, using the communication model in 'Maps as Models' as the example of that theoretical approach.
